


two-parts ichor

by vixleonard



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cousin Incest, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Reunions, Family Secrets, Married Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Minor Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, POV Female Character, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secret Relationship, Sexual Content, Starting Over, Time Skips, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:08:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixleonard/pseuds/vixleonard
Summary: you think achilles was of impressive descent? touch me one more time.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 37
Kudos: 482





	two-parts ichor

**Author's Note:**

> Absolute mishmash of book and show canons where the timeline is made up and the continuity doesn't matter.
> 
> Title and summary comes from the poem [Love Letters from Helen of Troy](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/131100041408/love-letters-from-helen-of-troy) by Elisabeth Hewer

The first time is an accident. Well, as much of an accident as these things can be. All Sansa knows is one moment she is seated in Jon’s chamber, her hand over his, all but begging for him to understand why he _must_ fight for Winterfell, for Rickon, for who they were, and the next, they are kissing, soft and careful and then faster, firmer.

Jon tries to pull away, insisting they shouldn’t do this, that she doesn’t _have_ to do this to earn his loyalty, but she knows all this. It is why she _wants_ this, because there is an option, because he will pull away and never touch her again, because he is not Ramsay Bolton and she is not his victim, his hostage, his pretty trophy to trot out when he wants to play and lock away when she’s no longer needed.

“Please,” she whispers, forehead pressed against his, her fingers twisting in the front of his clothing, “just this once.”

His hands stroke her hair even as he shakes his head, sounding pained as he murmurs, “Sansa…”

“You’re a good man, a kind man.” Her lips are soft against his. “Just once, Jon, and I swear I’ll never ask again.”

Later, if she is honest, she isn’t certain if she enjoyed it. Jon was gentle and patient, constantly asking if she wanted to stop, and Sansa wanted to cry because for the first time, someone actually _cared_ what her answer was. She trembled when he touched the scars left by all the cruel men who came before him, and she gasped when he entered her, the careful stretch of him inside her so different from what she experienced with Ramsay. He touches her where they’re joined, but whatever Jon is expecting doesn’t happen. When his thrusts began to get harder and quicker, Sansa doesn’t understand why he pulls out of her, why he spills his seed on her belly, and it quickly hits her that, unlike her “husband,” Jon Snow does not view her as a way to keep hold of the North, that he does not want to ruin her.

And it is _that_ , that startling realization that Jon Snow still believes there is something about her that can be ruined, that makes Sansa cry.

* * *

The second time comes about because of a question.

They are in his chamber again, Ghost stretched out in front of the fire, Jon seated at the small table in the room while she sits on the bed mending one of his shirts, when she ventures, “Jon?”

He grunts, not looking up from the book open before him, scratching out a number he’d just written and penciling in a correction.

“When we – The other night – That is to say – “ Sansa clears her throat. “Why did you touch me between my legs while we were…abed?”

Jon finally looks up, a blush creeping up his pale cheeks, and Sansa is grateful for his embarrassment because it matches her own. “Why, did I hurt – “

“No! No, nothing like that. I just wondered why…” She can now feel her own cheeks burning as hot as the fire warming the room. “I thought you only did that to get a lady ready.”

He’s set his pencil down now, his dark eyes seeming impossibly darker as he looks at her in a way that makes her stomach tighten in a pleasant way. “I wanted you to peak.”

“Ladies can do that?” When he nods, she finds herself rambling, eyes dropping back to her mending, “I thought it was only a thing that men did to make children. When Septa Mordane told me about what happened between lords and ladies, she never mentioned it. You must think me an idiot. I’m sure the other ladies you’ve been with – “

Sansa’s words catch in her throat as Jon kneels down before her, his hands gently covering hers. Taking the mending from her hands, he shakes his head. “You’re no idiot. I’m sorry you’ve never – “

Knowing he is going to reference Ramsay and what he’d done, Sansa starts to shake her head, trying to cut off whatever words he has, but he surprises her by saying, “But you deserve to feel that, and I could help if you’d like.”

That tightness in her stomach increases, and Sansa resists the urge to squirm beneath his gaze. “Like the other night?”

“No, it – “ He leans forward, brushing the softest of kisses against her lips before requesting, “I know I have no right to ask, but will you trust me?”

Sansa nods, allowing him to help her stand. As his calloused fingers begin to undo the laces of her gown, he rests his forehead against hers and makes her swear, “If you want me to stop, say it, shout it, _scream_ it if you must. This is for _you_ , and you control it.”

“All right.” She stands still as he finishes with her laces, carefully nudging the fabric off of her shoulders until it pools at her feet. Her shift comes next, leaving her in naught but her smallclothes, and his fingers begin to work on the knot holding them in place she says, “Wait.”

Jon stops at once, pulling his hands away from her body, and Sansa finds herself falling a little bit in love with him for it. “You want to stop?”

She shakes her head. “No, I just…I feel silly, naked while you’re…Could you take off your shirts, at least?”

Jon smiles, grasping the back of his shirts and pulling them over his head without hesitation. Her heart had been beating so quickly the last time, she’d hardly been able to focus on what he looked like without his clothes, but this time she looks. There are scars on his muscled chest and torso too, including a particularly vicious looking one over his heart, and Sansa isn’t certain she means to lean forward and kiss it, but she does. Jon inhales sharply through his nose, his hands hovering over her, and it takes Sansa a moment to realize why.

“You can touch me again.”

He does so at once, his kiss more passionate than the tender touch of his hands against her shoulders. They slide down the lengths of her arms, around the curve of her waist, and then he is working on the knot of her smallclothes again, whispering compliments in between kisses.

As he lays her back onto his bed, the furs warm against her back, Sansa finds herself touching the wild curls of his hair. He keeps it back during the day, knotted tightly away from his way the way Father had, and she finds she likes it better this way. Jon smiles up at her as she scratches his scalp lightly with her nails and quips, “I feel a bit like Ghost.”

“I used to envy your curls when we were younger,” she says, shivering in delight as his lips trace the fragile line of her collarbone. “Jeyne and I used to say it was so unfair how you and Robb got to have curls while our hair was pin straight.”

“You’re mad,” he murmurs as his lips descend onto the upper curves of her breasts. “You must know how beautiful you are, especially your hair.” Sansa bites her lip as Jon’s breath mists across her nipple. “The wildlings call hair like yours ‘kissed by fire.’ They say it’s lucky.”

“I don’t feel very – Ah!” she cries, her voice cracking as Jon’s tongue glides across the point of her nipple, his calloused fingers rolling the other at the same time. 

“Robb used to worry about how beautiful you are,” he divulges, nuzzling his way to her other breast to give it the same treatment. “He said he would be dueling every man from here to Essos when you were grown.”

“He did?”

Jon smiles up at her, the memory warm on his face. “His greatest fear was one day he’d find Theon trying to get under your skirts and then he’d have to duel his best friend. I told him if that happened, I’d fight the duel for him.”

Sansa chuckles even as her heart aches for the man Theon is now, so far removed from the boy who’d grown up alongside them. “Alys Karstark thought you were handsome. She told us once that she hoped her father arranged a match.”

Jon’s smile turns towards melancholy as he says, “Bastards don’t get matches with ladies.”

“You’re a better man than any lord I’ve ever known.”

He kisses her, long and soft, before whispering against her lips, “A better man wouldn’t be touching you this way.”

“I like the way you’re touching me.” She feels her cheeks heating again. “Does that make me wicked?”

“No, not at all.” Kissing her lips a final time before moving down her body again, he confesses against her breastbone, “And if it does, wickedness suits you.”

His lips are whisper soft as he kisses down her body. When he reaches her navel, his fingers skimming up and down the outside of her legs and over her hips before making the same journey again, Sansa feels something like panic starting to rise in her chest. His lips have just reached her maidenhair when she gasps, “Wait, stop, stop!”

Jon sits back on his heels between her splayed legs, rubbing his hands against the tops of his thighs. “Do you want your gown?”

“No, I just – “ Propping herself up on my elbows, she meets his gaze, torn between wanting to cover herself and wanting Jon to continue to touch her. “I’m scared. I don’t know what you’re going to do, and I want to trust you but – “

“Do you want me to tell you what I’m doing?”

She nods, easing herself back down onto the pillow. “Just…talk, please.”

“All right.” He reaches down, catching her behind each knee and urging her to bend them, framing his body with her bent legs. “I’m going to touch you first,” he begins, his hands following his words, tickling designs against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. “Your skin is so bloody soft.” He kisses her left kneecap, beginning a slow ascent up her thigh with his lips. “I want to kiss you everywhere. I want to make you feel better than you ever have.”

“How?” she asks, voice trembling as he moves from his knees onto his stomach, stretched out between her legs, his hands sliding around the outside of her thighs to hold them.

“I’m going to kiss your cunt,” he says before doing just that, stealing Sansa’s ability to speak as sensation rushes through her body.

She’s heard the word before, of course. It was one of Joffrey’s favorite curses to hurl at anyone who displeased him, and she’d heard the Hound refer to his fellow Kingsguard with it as well. It always made her cringe to hear it, particularly when Cersei would use it to make her squirm with her predictions of Sansa’s future, but hearing Jon say it in his rough Northern accent, warm and intimate, makes her wonder what else she might like if it comes from Jon.

It’s a bit odd at first, the drag of Jon’s tongue against her sensitive flesh. She isn’t entirely certain if she moving because she wants him to keep doing it or because she wants him to stop, but Jon seems to like it, groaning deep in his chest and lifting his mouth long enough to tell her how wonderful she tastes, how warm and wet her cunt is. Sansa is on the verge of telling him she doesn’t think it’s working when Jon’s clever tongue rolls over the bud at the top of her sex, and Sansa cannot catch the cry that explodes from her throat, her hands clutching Jon’s hair by instinct. She can’t seem to stop making noise now, arching her back, pushing her hips into Jon’s mouth, and he moves an arm, stretches it across the lowest part of her belly to try to keep her still. When he lifts his head to tell her he is going to slip fingers inside of her, Sansa only manages to choke out, “Don’t stop!” because something is building inside of her, something new and strange and scary but in a wonderful way.

As two of Jon’s blunt fingers stroke inside her, his lips suckling at her bud, something inside her bursts, and Sansa is shouting, pulling his hair hard enough to hurt, ecstasy coursing through her veins. She can’t seem to catch her breath, whimpering as Jon’s mouth continues to work its magic, and as a second peak hits her, she suddenly understands why men like this so much.

Jon lays his head on the curve of her stomach as her breathing regulates, his fingers drawing designs on her skin with a featherlight touch. She falls asleep like that, warm and sated.

* * *

Usually when she ventures out of Jon’s chambers, it is with accompaniment: Jon, Brienne, Podrick, even Ser Davos, though his presence makes her heart sting with how much he reminds her of her father. But the men at the Wall have been good to her so far and so when she decides to browse Sam’s books in the maester’s quarters, she goes alone.

Pride has always been her greatest sin.

There would’ve been a time when someone resting a hand on her shoulder unexpectedly would have made her start, but nothing more. But as she peruses the shelves, letting her fingers trip over the spines of the dusty books, she forgets for a moment to keep her guard up, to be prepared for an attack, and so when poor Sam Tarly taps her on the shoulder, Sansa screams, whirls around, and swings one of the tomes at him. He manages to back up just enough that it only connects with his shoulder, and the startled look in his eyes makes Sansa wants to melt into a puddle and die of embarrassment.

But rather than apologize like she wants, her body betrays her again, dissolving into tears, sputtering apologies as she backs herself against a wall and slides to the floor. Sam leaves her, saying something she doesn’t hear, and Sansa tries to make her heart stop racing, her tears stop flowing, tries to remember how to be _her_ and not this person Ramsay turned her into with his cruelty.

When the chamber door opens again, she expects it to be Sam bringing Jon, but instead it’s Jon’s steward, the pretty one with a bastard’s name that the other men all make insinuations about when he passes. Jon likes him, trusts him, and when Sansa meets his gaze, she thinks she understands why.

Satin moves slowly, carefully, as if she is an animal he is trying not to spook, and Sansa watches as he crosses the room until he is also against the wall, an arm’s length between them as he sinks down to the floor too. They sit in silence for several minutes before he stuns her by offering, “Men have hurt me the way you’ve been hurt.”

She wipes at her face. “Yeah?”

Satin nods before recounting his own stories, telling tales of terrible men who could have had his company for some coin but took it by force, of men who seemed kind who betrayed his trust and hurt him in ways he didn’t know he could be hurt. He doesn’t give her the details, but Sansa knows them all the same, knows them the way she knows her own name because that cruelty is now a part of her no matter how much she wishes it wasn’t. She knows she is not the first person who has been raped, but she doesn’t know anyone else who has survived it, anyone who could possibly understand what she’s experienced.

Except, it would seem, Satin Flowers.

“Does it ever get better?” 

“Eventually.” He lolls his head to look at her, and there is something about the sad smile on his beautiful face that makes Sansa smile too. “But you know what?”

“What?”

He inclines his head, dropping his voice to a whisper as he tells her the secret she will carry in her heart the rest of her days. “You survived it when you could’ve quit, and that means you’re a fucking warrior.”

Sansa gives a watery laugh, surprised by his assertion. She wipes at her cheeks again, the tears cool against her skin. “A warrior, huh?”

“Yeah. Seems like House Stark is full of those.”

Emotion rises in her throat, settling high in a tight ball as she thanks him. Satin smiles, getting to his feet and extending his hand to help her to her feet. She has just managed to stand when Sam finally returns with Jon, an edge of panic in Jon’s grey eyes.

“Is everything all right?” he asks, looking between her and Satin.

“It will be,” Sansa says, and for the first time since her farce of a wedding night, she actually believes it.

* * *

“Can I tell you a terrible secret?” Sansa asks Jon one evening as they pack their bags to begin the trek to collect Northmen to their side.

“I’m more interested to find out what you consider to _be_ a terrible secret.”

“I don’t remember what Rickon looks like. I mean, I remember his hair was like mine and his eyes were like yours. I remember holding him after Mother had him, and I remember the way he used to chase after you and Robb in the yard. But when I try to picture him as he was on the day we left…it’s like I have the outline of a little boy in my mind but not Rickon, not really.”

Jon tucks a shirt into his bag and sighs. “I thought I was the only one.”

“You don’t – “

“I can see Robb exactly as he was with the snow in his hair. I remember the weight of Arya in my arms and how small Bran looked in his bed, but Rickon…I wish I remembered him as well as the others, but I don’t.”

“It would’ve been like that with us, wouldn’t it have?” When Jon looks at her, shaking his head in confusion, she clarifies, “If I hadn’t come here, if I’d just sent you a letter and asked you to come for me, you wouldn’t have remembered me as I was that day.” She makes a noise, half-mirthless laugh, half-smothered cry. “Did we even say goodbye that day? I can’t remember.”

“You were with the queen.”

“The queen.” She scoffs. “Gods, I was such a stupid, little girl. I thought I was about to get everything I’d ever wanted, and instead I lost everything that ever mattered. And on top of all of that, I can’t even remember what my baby brother looked like.”

Jon crosses the room, pulling her into a careful embrace. She closes her eyes, savoring the press of him against her. He has such a wonderful way of holding her, of cupping his hand against the back of her neck beneath the heavy cape of her hair, that makes her feel secured to the earth, to him. “All that matters, is what he looks like when we get him back.”

“ _If_ \- “

“ _When_ ,” he interrupts. 

She appreciates his certainty, but she knows what Ramsay is capable of doing to a person. Neither she or Theon will ever be the same, and she still tries not to think about Fat Walda and her innocent babe or the kindly old woman who wanted to help her. She doesn’t believe in the gods anymore, hasn’t believed since the Red Wedding, but she still finds herself praying to anyone who will listen to protect Rickon.

Sansa feels it starting in her gut, that desperate flutter of panic, the frantic pounding of her heart, the near irrepressible urge to start running until her legs give out; it’s what makes her curl her fingers into the front of Jon’s shirts as she tries to tug him into a kiss.

“Wait, Sansa, we don’t have to – “

“I know. I know I never _have to_.” She lets one hand drift upwards to his face, feeling the scratch of his beard against the pads of her fingers as she seeks out his lips for a gentle peck. “You don’t have to either. You’re already doing so much. If you don’t want me – “

“It’s not about wanting you.” Jon closes his eyes as he rests his forehead against hers, something like pain on his handsome face. “Gods, Sansa…”

That is the third time.

* * *

Satin does not want to leave her alone with Littlefinger, and it is his reluctance more than anything that tells Sansa just how good of a person he is. She’s seen enough people fooled by Littlefinger’s slick words and unthreatening presence – hells, she’s been one herself – but Satin looks at him with the eyes of someone used to ferreting out liars and schemers. 

“It’s fine, Satin,” she finally says, looking at the man she once thought to be her savior with only a fraction of the contempt she feels. “Lord Baelish won’t hurt me.”

“If you need me, shout.” He hesitates for a moment as he moves past her before turning back to face her. Sansa is about to ask what’s wrong when Satin removes a dagger from his belt and, eyes locked on hers, presses it and its sheath into her hands. “You remember what I taught you?”

She does. He’d made her practice on a sack he’d stuffed with scraps from dinner, so she’d know what it felt like to push a blade into flesh. A half-hundred times he’d had her shove the knife into the sack and twist it as hard as she could because Satin swore it would do more damage to an attacker that way. When Brienne caught them practicing, she frowned but confirmed Satin was correct even if his grip was incorrect. Another time, Sansa would smile at the memory of Satin and Brienne bickering over how to best teach her to maim a potential rapist, but in this tent with Littlefinger is not the time.

“Are you going to stab me, Sansa?” Littlefinger asks when they are alone, a mocking lilt to his voice.

“I should for what you did, who you sold me to.” She unsheathes the knife, and though he hides it well, she sees a flash of fear in his eyes. “My uncle cut you once, didn’t he? Aunt Lysa spoke of it, the duel you lost.”

“He did. Your mother pleaded for my life, so he simply wounded me.” He smirks. “Would you like to see the scar?”

“Would you like to see mine? Ramsay gave me many.” She fixes the point of the dagger just below his heart. “No one pled for my safety.”

“I had no idea – “

“You’re lying. You’re five steps ahead of everyone else at this game. There’s no way you didn’t know what he was, and even if you didn’t, you knew they helped the Freys and the Lannisters at the Red Wedding. You sold me to legitimize what they stole from my family, and now you come here – “

“I come here to offer the Knights of the Vale.” He holds up his hands. “I know it is not enough of an apology, but it’s a start.” He wraps his hand around the wrist holding the knife as he swears, “I love you, Sansa, just as I’ve always loved – “

The knife cuts into him as easy as it did the practice sack. He hisses sharply, pulling back, and she doesn’t follow him with it, doesn’t twist it, doesn’t try to kill him. She watches the blood well and stain his fine shirt, and the betrayal in his eyes makes her smile.

“I accept your knights of apology. But this is the last time you ever enter my tent. It is the last time you are ever alone with me. And it is the last time you ever claim to love me, or I swear, I will kill you.”

Even after he leaves the tent, Sansa stands there, knife in hand, waiting for his return, waiting for the chance to make good on her promise.

* * *

Watching Rickon run across the field as Ramsay volleys arrows at him is a new kind of torture. She sits atop her horse on the hill with Brienne, Podrick, and Satin, and when she sees him running towards Jon, Sansa doesn’t even consciously think as she slides out of her saddle, wanting to rush to meet him.

Brienne stops her, keeps her from rushing towards her own death. Sansa knows she’d never reach the field in time, knows she’d likely end up dead herself, but it feels like she is back in King’s Landing all over again, helpless to stop Ilyn Payne from taking her father’s head. She cannot watch and she cannot look away, and it feels as if time has slowed as she watches Jon spur his horse on harder.

All of the air seems sucked from her body as she watches Ramsay’s arrow sink into the muddy ground at the same time as Jon manages to scoop Rickon up onto his horse. Another second and it would’ve been too late; the arrow would’ve hit him, and she would have lost another brother to the Boltons. Sansa’s knees give out, Brienne catching her beneath the arms, and gently setting her on the grass, and she nearly weeps as she watches Jon hand off Rickon to Ser Davos, who begins to ride towards them. 

There is still an entire battle to be fought, but it already feels like victory to know Rickon is safe.

* * *

Setting Ramsay’s hounds loose on him, hearing his screams and the ripping of his body by their teeth, walking away with the absolute knowledge he will be nothing but meat and bone in mere minutes sets her blood on fire in a way she’s never felt.

She finds Jon alone in the great hall. He’s bathed since the battle, his dark hair still wet and slicked away from his face, and he looks torn between exhaustion and grief as he runs his fingers over the arm of the lord’s seat. She can feel it too, the lingering presence of their father, of who they’d been before King Robert came and upended their lives.

He looks up at her, starting to open his mouth to ask her a question, but Sansa doesn’t let him get the words out. She clasps his face between her hands and kisses him, pouring everything she feels into him. Jon makes a noise against her lips, but he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t push her away. Judging by the desperation in his kiss, Sansa suspects his blood is burning as hot as hers, and it is why she urges him backwards until he is sitting in the lord’s seat.

This is the fourth time, and the fifth time will come later that night in her childhood chambers. She leaves scratches on his chest and he suckles a bruise into her thigh, and when they are done, Sansa wonders if it will always feel this good between them.

* * *

The King in the North cannot fuck his sister. 

Sansa knows and understands this better than anyone, having seen firsthand how even the whispers of Cersei and Ser Jaime’s relationship unraveled everything from the veracity of Joffrey’s and Tommen’s claims to the throne to the respect afforded House Lannister. Jon’s rule cannot be questioned, not if she and Rickon are going to live safely in Winterfell, and it is her duty to make sure he rules the North for a long time.

“You’ll need to marry,” she tells him after he’s dismissed Ser Davos, Brienne, Satin, and the others. “A king needs a queen.”

Jon pinches the bridge of his nose before scrubbing at his face. “The dead are marching south, Daenerys Targaryen has landed on Dragonstone with three dragons, we need Cersei Lannister’s armies to support us, and you want to plan a wedding?”

“I want to guarantee the North and House Stark. It isn’t as if I’m longing to throw a feast.”

“And you don’t…It won’t bother you?”

“To attend a wedding?”

If possible, his scowl deepens. “Don’t play dumb, not with me.”

She sighs, wrapping her arms around her body in a poor approximation of the embrace she wants. “It would undo everything we’ve accomplished if anyone knew…”

“I know.” He buries his face in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees, and there is something so defeated in his posture, that Sansa wonders if in his attempts to put her back together, he’s shattered himself. 

“It would bother me,” she finds herself saying, closing her eyes tight against the image of some anonymous woman wrapped around him. “How could it not?”

This is the sixth time and the last, she thinks, so she clings a little tighter, tries to commit every bit of it to memory, hoping some day they will be able to smother the memories that still keep her from a peaceful night’s sleep.

* * *

Rickon doesn’t remember her, not really, but Ramsay killed the wildling woman who’d cared for him all these years and so he comes to Sansa by default. He may be half-feral, her baby brother, but he is barely a boy of six and still needs a mother.

“I don’t like baths!” he growls when Sansa all but wrestles him into the tub, almost as wet as he is as she attempts to soap up his matted hair. “Osha didn’t make me take baths!”

Sansa has a running list in her head of all the things Rickon insists Osha never made him do: take baths, change his clothes, learn his letters, eat his turnips, use his silverware. There are times she wants to scream how she doesn’t want to hear a damned thing about Osha ever again, but each time the impulse strikes, she reminds herself that Rickon does not remember Catelyn Stark, who made him do all of those things and more.

But even as angry as she makes him, Sansa still finds Rickon climbing into her bed every night to curl up beside her, his warm, little body taking up far more space than is logical, his fingers always worrying the ends of her hair.

“Sansa?” he says one evening when she is almost asleep.

“Yes, sweetling?”

“Are you my mother now?”

She opens her eyes to find Rickon staring up at her, his face as soft and innocent as she’s seen it since their reunion. “I’m your sister.”

“Is a sister like a mother?”

Two things occur to Sansa in that moment. The first is that she has no idea how to explain what a sister is. The second is how painfully lonely Rickon’s life has been since leaving Winterfell, so isolated with his Osha that he didn’t even know what a sister was.

“Sometimes,” she finally says, unsure what else to say.

Rickon snuggles deeper into her embrace, and Sansa wraps her arms as tight around him as she can. As he rests his head against her breast, he exhales deeply and murmurs, “Don’t go away like Osha, okay, Sansa?”

She hopes he cannot hear the tears in her voice as she swears it.

* * *

Jon tells her he’s going South to ask Daenerys Targaryen for dragonglass and assistance in front of everyone in the great hall, and there was a time when Sansa would not have said a word, too concerned about politeness and courtesies.

That time has long since passed, which is why she does not hesitate to look at him and snap, “Are you mad?”

“Sansa – “

“When has a Stark going South ever ended in anything other than death? You’re the King in the North – “

“There won’t _be_ a North if the dead breach the Wall – “

“Then send Ser Davos and an envoy – “

“No, I’m going myself to – “

“You’re needed here – “

“This is not a debate!” Jon finally shouts, and Sansa glares at him as he continues on, speaking more to the Northern lords than her, expounding upon why it was important he asked Daenerys Targaryen himself for assistance. Halfway through his speech, she gets to her feet and leaves the hall, uncaring about anything but the incandescent rage and fear fighting inside her chest.

Jon comes to her solar a half-hour later, looking as furious as she feels. Neither of them says a word, glaring at each other with shared stubbornness, before Jon finally breaks and snaps, “You can’t talk to me like that in front of others!”

“So sorry, your grace,” she spits, voice thick with sarcasm.

“I have to do this! Kings make difficult decisions – “

“Don’t speak to me about what kings do! Unlike you, I’ve been to court, I’ve seen what kings do, and I’ve seen what happens in the South! You were tucked away at the Wall for everything! Has it ever occurred to you I may know more about how things are done than you?!”

“You think I don’t know that? I have no fucking idea what I’m doing! I didn’t want to be king! But here I am, here _we_ are, and I have to do what’s best for everyone in the gods damned North, not just you!”

“I’m not telling you to stay here for _me_! I’m telling you to stay here because I don’t want you to die!” Her voice cracks, but she rushes on. “I saw what they did to Father. Ramsay used to love to tell me in detail what happened to Robb and my mother. And they did all of that without dragons. What do you think will happen to you?”

Jon looks pained as he says, “I still have to try.”

“Then you’re a fool.”

She tries to walk past him, but he catches her wrist. Though he is not rough about it, she gasps, jerking away, stumbling backwards, and Jon, realizing what he’s done, instantly releases her, holding up his hands to show he is not going to advance upon her. Whatever he sees on her face sends him into a round of apologies, but Sansa leaves him there, barring herself inside her chambers and crying for what she knows will be another loss.

* * *

“I want to come,” Rickon declares as the three of them have supper in Sansa’s solar the night before Jon is to leave. “I want to see dragons.”

“You have enough to do here,” Sansa says, placing a portion of beans on Rickon’s plate. “If you can’t listen here, how could you listen so far away?”

“Jon!” he whines, turning his brother’s name into a multisyllabic word, and Jon laughs, ruffling Rickon’s hair.

“We’ll have an adventure of our own after I get back, I promise. We can do whatever you’d like.”

Rickon pushes the beans as close to the edge of his plate as he can without dumping them onto the table. “I want to go with you _now_.”

“Well, I don’t want either of you to go,” Sansa says, snapping her napkin as she lays it gently in her lap, “and so only one of you gets to leave at a time. Besides, Satin promised to teach you to shoot your new bow, didn’t he?”

Distracted at the mention of his new bow, Sansa struggles to keep her face neutral and engaged in the conversation. She does not want to think about tomorrow, about watching Jon go South and potentially never seeing him again. They know nothing about Daenerys Targaryen. Her father killed their grandfather and uncle; her brother kidnapped their aunt. Why Jon believes this will end well, she has no idea, but she does not want to be the one who has to tell Rickon he’s lost another person.

It takes forever to get Rickon into bed, the boy finally passing out where he sat. Jon cradles him carefully in his arms as Sansa tells him to put Rickon in her bed, carefully removing his boots before Jon tucks the bedclothes around him. Sansa watches as Jon brushes the curls off of Rickon’s forehead, pressing a tender kiss there, and it shatters her heart all over again.

“I don’t want us to part on bad terms,” Jon says when they return to her solar, gently closing the bedroom door behind them. “I couldn’t bear it – “

“Then don’t go. Stay with us.” Sansa takes hold of his hands, twining their fingers together. “Please, Jon. I cannot bear to lose you too, not after all of this.”

“You won’t – “

“I’m not Rickon’s age. You can’t promise – “

His kiss is rough with desperation, but Sansa does not care. She responds at once, nipping his lower lip and drawing a hiss of pain from him even as he maneuvers them to the chaise lounge near the window. It is fumbling and clumsy as she gathers her skirts, as he pushes at his pants, but when he is inside of her, they find their rhythm. If she was still the dreamy girl who’d wanted to be queen one day, she’d think they were made for each other, but now all she can do is move against him, digging her nails into his shoulders in a fruitless attempt to tether him to her.

“Come back to me, come back to me,” she pleads against his mouth, wrapping her legs around his hips, clinging to him with everything she has.

At first, she thinks she mishears him. She is drunk with grief and heartache, head fuzzy with the pleasure that always comes from lying with him. But then he says it again, breathes it against the arch of her throat as she tips her head back with pleasure, and Sansa knows she did not imagine it.

“I love you,” he pants, voice rough with emotion, and later, as she stands on the balcony and watches Jon ride off to meet the Dragon Queen, she does not recall if she said it back or not.

It haunts her every day he is gone, whether or not Jon will meet his death without knowing just how much she loves him.

This seventh time changes everything.

* * *

Brienne disapproves of her friendship with Satin. She doesn’t say it outright because, despite the ferocity in the way she swings her sword, she has a gentle heart, but Sansa sees it in the set of her mouth, hears it in the silences that follow otherwise factual statements.

“He was a whore in Oldtown,” Brienne states one afternoon after she’d found Sansa and Satin chasing Rickon about the yard with snowballs.

Sansa thinks of Shae, of that terrible morning when she’d woke with blood on her thighs, and says, “The few whores I’ve met have always been rather resourceful people.”

“He seems like a kind man – “

“He is,” she interrupts, her voice firmer than she expects it to sound, “and gods know the world does not have enough of those, so as long as Satin Flowers would like a place here, he will have one.”

Brienne blushes, drops her eyes towards her plate, and she does not bring it up again.

Podrick, gods bless him, finds Sansa later and offers, “She just worries about you, my lady. She loved your mother dearly and wants to do well by you.”

It is the most words Sansa’s ever heard the squire string together at one time, and it makes her smile. “I know, Ser Podrick, and I appreciate her care.”

Satin is amused by her attempts at defending his honor. He teases her about being his knight, casting himself as the maiden, and Rickon giggles as Satin bats his long eyelashes and pretends to swoon. Rickon loves Jon’s former steward more than anyone else in the castle, following him around like a shadow, and he is one of the few who doesn’t seem to get irritated with Rickon’s unpredictable moods and explosions of temper.

“Are you one of my brothers?” Rickon asks him one evening as they eat supper, and Satin winks at Sansa before answering, “Oh, I’m nowhere near pretty enough to be one of you Starks.”

“ _Do_ you have siblings?” Sansa asks him later as they sit in her solar passing a skin of Arbor gold between them. She lays on the chaise while Satin sits on the floor, leaning back against it, and she cannot help but run her fingers through his hair, Satin moving into the touch like a cat.

“Probably. I’m sure whoever my father was, he had a sweet, little wife at home, and my mother may have had another child before or after me. She likely only had me because she thought I’d be a girl and could make some coin in the brothel, spare her extra time on her back.”

“Do you hate her?”

He shakes his head, handing her the skin. “Desperate people do desperate things. It wasn’t as if she was a highborn lady with options. Looking back, she was barely more than a child herself when I was born.”

“But how – “ Sansa takes a heavy swallow of the wine before confessing, “I’m so bloody angry all the time: at Ramsay, at Littlefinger, at Joffrey, at every man who ever grabbed me or tried to kiss me or even leered at me. I thought it would go away because most of them are dead, but it hasn’t. How can you not hate her for leaving you in that place?”

“I did. Sometimes I still do. I’m glad those men who hurt you are dead, but it doesn’t erase what they did. Eventually it just…fades.” Turning to face her, he explains, “No matter how angry I get, it doesn’t change what those men did to me. And you could have killed Ramsay Bolton a thousand times, and it wouldn’t change what he did to you.”

A tear rolls down her cheek. “The night he died, he told me he’d always be a part of me.”

“It was one last way to hurt you. It isn’t true, Sansa. If it was, if he was such a part of you, you wouldn’t be able to be so sweet to Rickon or laugh or gorge yourself on those lemon cakes or lay with – “ Satin stops, his eyes going wide, and Sansa’s stomach drops.

“You know.” He begins to shake his head, but she rushes on, “Do others? Does anyone else – “

“No! No, I just – I saw – I haven’t told anyone. I’ll _never_ tell anyone.” Climbing onto the chaise, Satin grasps her hand tight as he swears, “I owe my life to Jon, and you know I love you. There are far worse things in this world than what you and Jon do when you’re alone.”

“It was my fault,” she says, stomach churning with nausea as her panic rises. “It was only meant to be once because I wanted to know what it was like – I wanted to feel – “

“Shh, shh, it’s all right,” Satin assures her, gently wrapping her in a loose hug. “I won’t say a word. Just breathe, sweetling.”

But it feels different now, someone knowing her and Jon’s secret, and she cannot seem to slow her breathing. And then she is emptying her stomach on the solar floor, Arbor gold burning its way up her throat and ruining what had been a perfectly lovely evening.

* * *

She thinks she’s hallucinating when she sees the motley crew stumble through the gates, a cart pulled behind them. Her sleep has been horrid lately, the concerns of rebuilding the castle and providing for the castle’s people weighing heavily on her mind, and even when she can sleep, her head is full of nightmares concerning Jon and dragons. There is no way, she decides, that what she’s seeing is real.

And then she hears Rickon scream, “Bran!” as he rushes across the yard, and Sansa realizes she isn’t hallucinating at all.

Rickon has remembered nothing and no one since returning home. Sansa’s lost count of how many times he’s gotten lost in the castle, turned around in the godswood, or heard a name mentioned and asked later who it was. He was barely more than a toddler, she’d remind herself, when everything went to hells, and she was there to remind him. But as she watches Rickon scramble into the cart, throwing himself at Bran and clinging to him as if he is going to turn to dust in his hands, Sansa finds herself crying more for Rickon’s memories than for seeing Bran and Hodor again.

“Hodor!” the giant man says happily, embracing Sansa just as he had when she was a girl, and she squeezes him as tight as she can, savoring the familiarity of him.

There is less familiarity in Bran. He is all long limbs now, his hair still long like it’d been the day he fell, but his face is thinner, more angular. Though his coloring is much like hers, the look of him reminds her of Uncle Benjen, right down to the seriousness of his countenance. Even as he hugs Rickon with the same fierceness, his face remains somber, and Sansa looks at the boy and girl accompanying them and finds it easier to introduce herself to them than approach her brother.

“Meera and Jojen Reed, my lady,” the girl says, a tired smile on her face. 

Sansa is surprised to see Rickon hug them next, Meera ruffling his hair, Jojen handing him some trinket from a pouch at his waist. It is only then Sansa moves towards Bran, who finally meets her gaze, and his lips twitch as if he wants to smile but has forgotten how.

“Bran,” she sighs, wrapping him in a hug, wishing for the hundredth time that her parents were here.

“I missed you,” he says, his voice so soft, it is nearly carried away by the wind, and Sansa vows then and there that she will go to war a thousand times before she ever lets anyone part her from her brothers again.

* * *

The sickness spreads through the castle so quickly, Maester Wolkan declares the meat used for supper one evening must have been diseased. Sansa does not care so much for the reason, not when everyone who had the misfortune of eating the pork dish is spending every moment in the privy. Rickon manages to vomit in her bed no less than three times in one day, and, by the third time, both she and Rickon are crying from frustration and exhaustion.

“Dying would be better,” Satin groans when they pass each other in the hallway, the serving girls hurrying on silent feet with arms full of fresh linens for their beds, and for once, Sansa agrees. Death certainly seems preferable to the digestive disaster they’re all currently experiencing.

Even Brienne looks as if a stiff breeze will knock her over, and Sansa thinks if Brienne cannot withstand this, none of them stand a chance.

In the week the near entirety of the castle is down with sickness, the snows roll in, blanketing the grounds in snow deep enough that Ghost, left in the North to keep watch of her and Rickon, nearly disappears in the drifts. By the time Sansa has the strength to dress and make it downstairs to resume the business of running Winterfell, she thinks they are behind on so many things, she is not quite certain where to begin.

And then she enters the great hall to find Littlefinger there with Maester Wolkan, and her stomach lurches.

“I told the dear maester not to bother you when you were so ill,” he says as Sansa approaches, forcing her face into the placid look of nothingness she’d perfected at Joffrey’s court. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve helped in your absence.”

He knows she does, just as she knows this is a test. It is why she smiles and says, “Not at all. You have experience in these things.”

“I was surprised to hear your…brother left you alone here while he traipses about in the South. To dally with a Targaryen is a game I wouldn’t encourage anyone to take on, no matter how many battles they’ve won. Tell me, little bird, will you rule in your little brother’s stead should King Jon fall in the South?”

 _I am not your little bird_. “I am regent until the king returns.”

As Maester Wolkan moves away, he drops his voice, stepping into her space. Sansa is acutely aware of the servants moving about in the hall, and it is all that keeps her from screaming. “You should be the one ruling. You were made to be queen, my girl.”

“Is that why you’ve come, to see me crowned?”

“I came because I hoped to put our last…meeting behind us. It was a terrible parting, and you know I would do anything for you, Sansa. You must know that.”

“Of course, my lord. You proved that in the Vale.”

He smiles beneath that thin mustache she despises, the one she can still feel tickling her lips during his unwanted kisses. “There’s my dear girl.” His hand is cold and chapped as it touches her cheek. “I have ached with missing you.”

If he hadn’t touched her, Sansa thinks she might have let him live. But the touch of his skin against hers, the presumption she is _his_ seals his fate.

So long as Petyr Baelish breathes, none of them are safe.

* * *

“I do not trust that man.”

Sansa does not take her eyes off of Baelish to respond to Brienne. “Nor do I.”

“Then why let him remain here?”

“Because it’s better to have eyes on him than to not know what he’s doing. Besides, my cousin still holds the Vale, and I do not trust Baelish with him.” She sighs. “Robin is a spoiled creature, but he’s lost everything too.”

“I still do not trust him.” Brienne shifts, her hand falling to the pommel of her sword. “The way he looks at you is – “

“I know.”

It is why she keeps the dagger Satin gave her beneath her pillow.

* * *

Her trouble sleeping continues as does her unsteady stomach. Brienne urges her to see Maester Wolkan, but Sansa waves her away, insisting it is just stress. There has been no word from Jon for weeks now, not since his first letter stating they’d reached Dragonstone, and she fears more and more there will never be another letter, that the Dragon Queen has ended his life. Even Ghost seems uneasy, and that makes Sansa worry more than anything else.

She has just emptied her stomach for the second time this morning when she realizes she has not bled since before Jon left. As she rinses her mouth with water, she tries to remember when last she bled and realizes she cannot remember. But she knows how long it has been since Jon went South, has counted each of those days, and if what she suspects is true, it has been almost four moons since their last night together.

The large looking glass had belonged to her mother, having traveled to Winterfell from Riverrun when she first came North. How it managed to survive the multiple sieges of the castle, Sansa has no idea, but now it stands in the corner of her bedchamber, as golden and fine as ever. Barring the door, she undresses completely, standing in front of the looking glass and truly looking at herself. As she turns to the side, she can see the slightest curve to her lower stomach. She brushes her fingers against it to find it firm, and she cannot help but think of her mother, swollen with Rickon, and how she’d climb into bed to rest her head against the bump that would become her baby brother. 

This is a disaster. If the people of the North learn she carries her half-brother’s child, they will not support Jon as king; they will not stand with House Stark. Sansa knows better than anyone in the North what it was like for Cersei’s children after the rumors began about them, and she will not allow that to happen here.

The pounding at her chamber door, followed by Rickon shouting her name, shakes Sansa out of her stupor. “Just a moment!” she calls, hurrying back into her clothing, smoothing the bodice of her gown over her body to make certain there is no hint of the secret she carries.

* * *

Arya returns as quietly as she disappeared. For years, Sansa hoped her sister survived that terrible day when their household was killed, that she’d not only escaped the Lannisters but lived a wonderful life somewhere beautiful and safe. But the moment Sansa sees the thick ropes of scar tissue on her torso, she knows that while Arya survived, it wasn’t somewhere beautiful and safe.

“I thought you were all dead,” Arya states that first night as she piles into Sansa’s bed alongside Rickon and even Bran, Ghost and Summer sprawled in front of the fire. “I thought there was nothing to come back to until a friend told me about Jon.”

“Then why’d you come back?” 

“Revenge,” Bran answers in that odd, distant way he has sometimes now. “Winter came for the Freys.”

Arya smiles. “The North remembered.”

“ _You_ did that?”

“I did.”

“Good,” Rickon speaks up, rubbing drowsily at his eyes. “They were bad. They killed Robb and our mother, right?”

“Right, sweetling,” Sansa says, kissing the top of his head. 

It isn’t until Rickon has drifted off to sleep that Sansa asks, “Do you still want revenge?”

Arya nods.

“Lord Baelish deserves to die.” 

Now that she’s said it aloud, Sansa finds she cannot stop speaking, detailing how he’d convinced Aunt Lysa to poison Jon Arryn, setting the wheels in motion that led their father to his death, and then how he’d killed Aunt Lysa as well, throwing her out of the moon door. And just when she has exhausted herself of all the misdeeds she knows him guilty of committing, Bran surprises them both by offering what he’s seen through the weirwoods, the part Littlefinger played in their father’s murder.

“He who passes the sentence swings the sword,” Bran says, looking so much like their father in that moment, it makes Sansa close her eyes.

“I’ll swing it with pleasure,” Arya declares, and Sansa thinks she should feel worse about plotting a murder with her siblings.

But, in truth, she doesn’t feel anything but satisfaction at knowing Petyr Baelish is not long for this world.

* * *

The babe quickens the same day a letter finally arrives from Jon. Sansa reads the few lines until she can recite them word for word, and when she tells her siblings Jon is headed back to Winterfell with the Dragon Queen, she simultaneously feels a wondrous sense of relief and a terror unlike any she’s ever known. 

It’s harder to hide the curve of her stomach now, particularly with Rickon still insisting on sharing her bed. She lets out the waists of all of her gowns, finds the thickest furs to drape around herself, but still she can see the added weight in her face, the uncomfortable tightness of her gowns around her ever expanding breasts. One morning she comes to break her fast, and she sees the knowledge in Satin’s eyes. If not for her voracious hunger, she would have fled the hall, but instead she remains, devouring everything placed in front of her as slowly and daintily as possible.

Satin finds her later as she manages the ledgers. He takes a seat across from her, not saying a word, and Sansa doesn’t acknowledge him, focusing on her sums. It is only when she puts down her pen that Satin finally speaks.

“Unless you plan to leave it in the forest, you’re going to need a story to tell.”

“I don’t…Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, I’m not going to leave it in the forest, I know that. I just…There’s no plan.”

“How long until it comes?”

“Three moons? Maybe four?”

“If the dead are marching south, you need to go somewhere safe until you have it. Your cousin in the Vale – “

“I’m not leaving Winterfell, not ever.”

Satin sighs. “Who will you say is the father?”

“No one.” When Satin raises an eyebrow, she explains, “My father never told a soul who Jon’s mother was. People gossiped and guessed, but no one knew for sure. And if it looks like Jon, it won’t be suspicious because he’s a Stark and so am I. You’ve seen Arya; she looks just like him. No one will really care about me, not once Jon is back.”

“What will you tell your siblings?”

She scoffs. “I can hardly tell them truth. Rickon’s too young to ask questions, and Bran and Arya won’t push.”

“And Jon?”

“Jon will do what’s best for all of us. It’s why he’s king.”

Satin’s eyes are so full of sympathy, Sansa cannot keep his gaze. “What about what _you_ want?”

“I want Winterfell and my family and the North. That’s all that matters.”

He sighs, covering her hand with his own. “Whatever you need, you know I’ll do it.”

She does. Just as she knows Brienne will always protect her, she knows Satin will keep her secrets. There is a part of her that desperately wishes she could love Satin the way she loves Jon, that dwells on how much simpler everything would be if she could transform the love she has for him into something romantic. When she says it out loud, Satin smiles and surprises her by leaning forward and pressing a long, soft kiss against her lips.

“I wish that too, sweetling, but neither of us is built that way.”

* * *

Rickon discovers her pregnancy a week before Jon and the Dragon Queen are meant to reach Winterfell. There is no way to hide the large curve of her stomach in just her nightshift, and though she usually goes to bed after Rickon and rises before him, tonight Rickon wakes when she returns from making water.

“Why are you so fat?” he asks in a sleep roughened voice.

Carefully climbing back into bed, Sansa sighs. “Because I’m going to have a baby.”

“You are?” He takes his index finger and pokes it against her belly, jerking his hand back when the baby inside, displeased with being poked, kicks at him. “How many are in there?”

“Just one, I think.” Knowing what he’s thinking, she adds, “People aren’t like wolves. Usually they just have one babe at a time.”

“When’s it going to come out?”

“A few more moons. It needs to get a bit stronger first.”

Rickon settles against her, resting his head against her breasts before placing a cautious hand back on her stomach. “Is it going to be a boy or a girl baby?”

“We won’t know until it comes.” She kisses the top of his head, inhaling the scent of him. “You should get back to sleep. It’ll be a busy day tomorrow.”

Sansa thinks he is asleep and is about to nod off herself when Rickon murmurs, “If you’re the baby’s mother, will you be too busy to be my mother still?”

Heart breaking, Sansa encircles him with her arms as best she can. “I’ll be your mother for as long as you want me to be, sweetling.”

As she cradles her brother in her arms, Sansa silently weeps and wishes for Catelyn Stark in a way she hasn’t in years.

* * *

By the time Sansa makes her way to the hall to break her fast, Rickon has told anyone and everyone that he is going to be a big brother because Sansa is having a baby.

“I tried to explain what a niece or nephew is to him, but I don’t think he understands,” Arya explains as she chews her bacon, her face frustratingly unreadable. 

“He wants to name it Osha if it’s a girl or Shaggydog if it’s a boy,” Bran chimes in, passing a pitcher of milk to Jojen Reed.

“’Shaggydog Stark’ does have a ring to it,” Arya says, a smile finally cracking her serious expression, and Meera Reed, seated on the other side of her, gives a quick bark of laughter she attempts to drown in a cup of milk.

“We hardly need another Brandon,” Bran concurs.

“Are you two done?” Sansa snaps, rolling her eyes when the two of them start to giggle as if they are children. She finds she cannot even be irritated at their teasing because to hear them laugh like this, sounding like the Bran and Arya of old, is enough to temporarily ease her nervousness about Jon’s return.

“Congratulations, my lady,” Brienne says to her later as they prepare for the yard for the upcoming arrival.

“Thank you, Brienne.”

Her sworn shield’s jaw flexes, and Sansa wonders how many questions the older woman is forcing herself not to ask. Instead she finally ventures, “This is a lovely surprise.”

Already exhausted from the day’s preparations and nauseous, Sansa smiles. “It’s all right. I know my parents would be disappointed in my circumstances. We don’t have to pretend otherwise.”

Brienne nods before bending so she can whisper in Sansa’s ear without being overheard by Podrick. “No one…someone did not force this on you, did they, my lady?”

Sansa shakes her head. “It was an accident.”

Sansa isn’t certain if she means the child or the act that created it, and thankfully, Brienne doesn’t ask for clarification.

* * *

Even in her altered gowns and heavy furs, the curve of her stomach is unmistakable on the day Jon and Daenerys Targaryen ride into Winterfell. Sansa stands in the yard where her parents once stood to greet King Robert, Bran and Rickon beside her, and she wishes she could treat this as a joyous occasion, wishes it was just Jon and his men returning. As the group rides into Winterfell, Sansa rests one hand on her belly, the other on Rickon’s shoulder, and chooses to focus on where the hells Arya has gotten to rather than playing hostess.

Jon’s eyes go wide when he takes in the sight of her, but Sansa’s face gives away nothing as he and Daenerys Targaryen approach. The Dragon Queen is nowhere near as fierce as she’d imagined, standing a full head shorter than Sansa and slight on top of it. But she is beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman Sansa has ever seen, and her white hair is bound in a complex nest of braids. When she smiles, Sansa attempts to reciprocate it, but there is something in the way Jon and Daenerys move that tells Sansa their relationship is not just political.

“You must be Sansa,” Daenerys says, folding her hands in front of her body, her smile genuine. “Jon has told me so much about you. Though, I must say, he failed to mention this. When are you due?”

“Three moons, Your Grace. I welcome you to Winterfell. We are – “

“Can I pet your dragons?” Rickon pipes up, the limits of his patience and self-control apparently reached, and though Bran hisses his name, Rickon is unbothered, looking up at Daenerys as he awaits an answer.

Daenerys laughs. “And you must be Rickon. I’m sorry, but my dragons don’t allow anyone without Targaryen blood to touch them. I’d hate for you to get hurt.”

“Can I watch them eat something? Shaggydog ate a unicorn once. Do dragons eat unicorns?”

“Please excuse him, Your Grace, he is still learning his manners.” Sansa squeezes his shoulder in warning. “This is my other brother Brandon. Our sister Arya is about somewhere. She’ll turn up soon, I’m sure. She could hardly wait for your arrival.”

“Yes, Jon has spoken fondly of her as well. It is a pleasure to meet you, Brandon.”

As Sansa introduces the others, she almost trips over her words as she sees Tyrion Lannister exiting a litter with Ser Davos. She has not seen her first husband since fleeing King’s Landing after Joffrey’s death, and she hadn’t expected to ever see him again. How he ended up with Daenerys Targaryen is a story she is interested in hearing. 

If nothing else, Tyrion always had interesting stories.

* * *

“You think he’s fucking her?” Arya asks as they stand on the balcony, watching as Jon shows Daenerys around the yard, her Dothraki and Unsullied making plans to fortify the castle against the white walkers.

It is a question that’s haunted her since their arrival and one she hasn’t wanted to consider. But still Sansa says, “Yes.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t trust anyone.”

“ _You_ trust her?”

“No.” Sansa rests her hands on her belly, the baby in near constant motion. “But Jon does, and he’s sworn us to her. I might not agree with it, but I have to respect it.”

“You’re lying. You’re furious.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re a terrible liar. Your face gives away everything.”

“No, it doesn’t!”

“Maybe not to those stupid lords, but you can’t lie to me. You don’t want to bend the knee, and you don’t like that he’s fucking her.”

“Fine, I don’t. But she has dragons, and I have Rickon to care for and a baby due sooner than I’d like. I can’t fight a war right now. I don’t want to fight at all. I just want – “ She sighs. “I want us to be safe here. I don’t want us at anyone’s mercy ever again.”

Arya is quiet for a long beat. Finally, she says, “The lone dies, but the pack survives.”

* * *

Jon cannot look at her.

If anyone notices, they say nothing, and Sansa is grateful for it. They are bracing for the war to end all wars, and the last thing anyone has to worry about is whether the former King in the North is quarreling with his half-sister. And yet it does not surprise Sansa at all that the person who _does_ notice is Tyrion.

“I thought nothing could be colder than the Wall, but you and Jon Snow might make me reconsider that.”

“Have you become an expert on brother-sister relationships?”

“Oh, hardly. Cersei tried to have me killed after you left.” He shrugs, draining his cup of wine. “I hear the ransom on my head is only slightly greater than the one on yours.”

“No one is more disappointed than me that I didn’t have a hand in Joffrey’s end.”

“I beg to differ, dear wife.” Pouring himself another cup of wine, he adds, “It really was a fitting end for him, wasn’t it?”

“Who do you think did it? I’ve always wondered.”

“My money was always on the bride.”

Sansa chuckles. “So was mine.”

He lifts his cup in a half-hearted toast. “To Queen Margaery, gods rest her scheming soul.”

Sansa lifts her own cup but doesn’t drink. “I was sorry to hear of her death, of all of their deaths. I always knew Cersei was cruel, but I didn’t realize she was mad.”

“Oh, madder than Aerys.” He winces. “Let’s not mention that to our queen.”

“You trust her?”

He nods. “I believe in her. She wants a better, kinder world. I have done terrible things in this life, but I’d like to do some good.”

She points to the Hand pin on his chest. “And that’s how you’ll do good, by serving a queen you believe in?” When he nods, she adds, “And would you believe in her so strongly if she was only half as pretty?”

“That isn’t what this is.”

Sansa looks at the dais where Daenerys sits with Jon, deep in conversation, and struggles not to wince. “I hope your faith is rewarded then.”

Tyrion looks at her in that shrewd way of his as he drawls, “And where does your faith lie, wife?”

Pressing a hand against her belly as the babe gives a particularly strong kick, she answers honestly for perhaps the first time since meeting Tyrion. “Myself.”

* * *

Jon finds her in her rooms just after the horns have blown, Rickon already in the crypts with Hodor and the others. Though she knows she needs to join them, she wants to make certain everyone is squared away, and when she sees Jon standing in her doorway, she _knows_ he was looking for her.

“You need to get downstairs – “

“I know, but I need to – “

“You need to get downstairs!” Jon sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Please, Sansa, you have to get somewhere safe. I can’t – I can’t – “

She steps into him, catching his hands. “I’m going now. I promise.”

Jon pulls his hands away, and Sansa is about to apologize when he cups her face with his left hand, his right hand falling to her stomach. She closes her eyes as he touches his forehead to hers, trying desperately to keep tears at bay at having him so close after so long.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “For everything. I wish – “

“Tell me tomorrow,” she cuts in, leaning forward to brush her lips against his. “Tell me tomorrow.”

If tomorrow comes, Sansa knows Jon Snow is going to break her heart.

* * *

Rickon refuses to give her the dragonglass dagger he used to kill the walking corpse that attempted to kill her and Tyrion, even after all of the dead fall still again. 

“What if they wake up again? I’m protecting you!”

Sansa appreciates Rickon wanting to protect her, but she’s equally afraid he will accidentally stab someone as she is the dead will rise again. By the time they make it out of the crypts to the body-littered yard, her fears of just how many people she’s now lost replaces her concern that Rickon will maim another survivor.

Rickon starts shouting their siblings’ names the moment they make it into the yard, his shrill voice echoing in the unsettling quiet of the battle’s aftermath. She sees Brienne and Podrick, bloodied but alive; there is Ser Davos, the armorer who reminds her of Lord Renly, the Unsullied commander always at Daenerys’s side, but she doesn’t see Jon or Arya or Bran and panic starts to fill her chest, squeezing her heart and making each breath difficult.

“Sansa!”

Satin’s embrace almost knocks her off-balance, but she returns it with the same ferocity, Rickon flinging himself against Satin’s leg as well. She can barely tell it’s her friend, so bloodied and filthy from the fight, but he seems to be whole and _alive_ , which is all that matters.

“Have you seen – “

“Jon!” Rickon bellows, rushing away from them, and by the time Sansa has turned around, Rickon has cleared literal piles of white walkers to fly at Jon, who has emerged from behind the body of a fallen dragon. Jon drops his sword in order to catch Rickon, holding him tight against his body; Sansa’s eyes meet Jon’s across the yard, and the relief coursing through her body makes her sag against Satin, who points at something in the distance.

Bran and Arya.

Only then does Sansa start to cry in earnest, unable to control the wild gratitude as she realizes they’ve somehow survived, that they are still here.

* * *

The planning for the fight against Cersei begins far too soon for Sansa’s liking. Maester Wolkan and Sam Tarly both seem to always be chasing after her, telling her she needs to be resting, that she should be in bed awaiting the arrival of the baby, but she cannot just lay about while decisions are made without her.

“I need you to stay here,” she tells Arya one morning when her back and hips ache so terribly, she has no choice but to remain in bed. 

“In your room? What do you – “

“No, at Winterfell. I need you to stay here instead of going to King’s Landing.” Arya opens her mouth to protest just as Sansa knew she would, but she rushes on, “I understand how much you hate Cersei. She deserves to pay just as Littlefinger did, and I hope she suffers, I do.”

“Then why – “

“Because women die in the birthing bed all the time, and I need you – “ Her voice cracks, and she takes a deep breath to steady herself. “I need you to be here so that what happened to us never happens to this baby.”

Arya stares at her for a moment before admitting, “I don’t know how to take care of people like you do. All I can do is…kill.”

“That’s not true. You’re more than a killer, Arya. We all did what we had to do to survive. It’s time to do more than just survive now.” Wincing as the babe somehow grinds into her hipbone, she continues, “Mother and Father would want us to be here, to be who they raised us to be. Robb’s gone. Jon…You know Daenerys wants him to stay with her. It’s our responsibility to take care of Bran and Rickon, to make sure Winterfell stays ours.”

“What about Daenerys? Are we bending the knee?”

“I can’t even see my knees right now, let alone bend them.” She sighs. “Jon gave her the North. We aren’t exactly in a position to take it back. But if she defeats Cersei, if she gets her kingdoms, I don’t see her caring much what we do so long as we keep quiet.”

“About independence? Or about what Bran told us?”

They haven’t discussed it, Bran’s revelation regarding Jon’s parentage. A part of Sansa wanted to weep in relief when she’d heard it, relieved that perhaps they hadn’t committed such an unforgiveable sin after all, that Jon is her cousin and not her brother. But the other part, the part who had learned at the knees of Cersei Lannister and Petyr Baelish, understood precisely what this could mean, how it could be weaponized, and the urge to whisper it to the right person, to sow dissension until she can get what she wants still tugs at her.

And yet she meets her little sister’s gaze and states, voice so firm it cannot brook argument, “Jon Snow’s father was Ned Stark; his mother was Ashara Dayne or some Dornish wet nurse or a sailor’s daughter from Gulltown. Everyone knows that. And that’s all anyone will ever know.”

Understanding passes between them, and Arya nods.

Their father’s secret will not be told by them.

* * *

Her labor begins two days before Jon, Daenerys, and their armies are to march on King’s Landing.

She is seated in the great hall at the head table with both Jon and Daenerys, listening to petitions, when she loses her water. At first, she thinks she’s wet herself, but then a pain strikes sharp and unexpected, and though she doesn’t mean to, her hand flails and she upends her cup of water.

“Lady Sansa?” Daenerys ventures. “Are you all right?”

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but I must excuse myself,” she manages through clenched teeth, struggling to her feet. “Would you please send for Maester Wolken for me?”

Daenery’s violet eyes go wide, and suddenly she and Jon are both on their feet, dismissing the people in the hall while shouting for one of the servants to find the maester. She wants to tell them to find Arya as well, to make sure she isn’t off on one of her little adventures in the wolfswood, and to warn them Rickon will be upset with her confinement, but all she can do is try to breathe through the pain.

“You’re going to be fine,” Daenerys assures her as she and Jon each take one of her elbows, leading her towards her chamber. “I know the pain is overwhelming, but you’re strong. Jon says you’re one of the strongest people he’s ever known.”

“You are,” Jon chimes in, his voice sounding distinctly less calm than Daenerys’s. “Do you remember when your mother had Bran? No, no, you would’ve been too young then. She labored for three days, and she was just fine.”

“Do you want us to get anyone to stay with you? Lady Brienne, she’s your companion, no? And I’m sure your sister – “

“I want my mother,” she blurts out, wincing at how young and silly she sounds, and the urge to cry only intensifies when Jon squeezes her hand, caressing the back of it with his thumb.

“I think all women do at times like these. I never even knew my mother, and I still wished for her when I lost my Rhaego.” Daenerys brushes Sansa’s hair away from her face, the gesture so kind and maternal, it makes Sansa wish they truly _were_ friends. “I’ve heard stories of your mother. Tyrion says you and your sister are as fierce as she was.”

“We had to be,” is all she can manage, her throat tightening with emotion.

She thinks of her mother as Maester Wolkan and the midwife from Wintertown who has come to assist him help her undress and check her progress. Though she’d never spoken much about it, Sansa knows her mother was uncertain if she’d ever see their father again when she gave birth to Robb during the Rebellion. She’d been about Sansa’s age then with only Aunt Lysa for company, and she’d managed to bring Robb into the world. And then, years later, she’d birthed Arya while Father was putting down the Greyjoy Rebellion. If her mother could labor alone twice, Sansa thinks she can surely manage it once.

Rickon comes to her chamber before Arya does, out of breath and wild-eyed. Maester Wolkan tries to send him away, but Rickon ignores him, ducking under his arm to reach Sansa, who is standing near the window, clutching a stool as she breathes through a contraction. The worry on his face hurts nearly as much as the pains, and she pants, “It’s all right, sweetling. This is just how babies are born.”

In the end, it takes Jon and Ser Davos both to remove Rickon from the room, Rickon fighting like a wild animal the entire time. He screams Sansa’s name, insisting he needs to stay to protect her, and Sansa isn’t certain if she’s crying from the pain of labor or the sense of helplessness for Rickon. By the time Arya arrives in her chamber, hair mussed with what looks like soot on her forehead, Sansa is half-mad wondering if Rickon has calmed, if he is all right.

“Jon and Bran took him to the godswood to pray,” Arya says, washing her hands in one of the basins. “I told Daenerys if he tries to get away, to let him get as close to the bloody dragons as he can to distract him.”

“Where were _you_?”

Sansa isn’t certain, but she thinks Arya’s blushing. “Making arrangements.”

She has no idea what that means but trying to puzzle out Arya requires more energy and attention than Sansa is capable of at the moment.

* * *

“I guess we can’t call her Shaggydog.”

If she wasn’t so exhausted, Sansa would laugh. Instead she looks at Bran, smiles, and says, “Probably not.”

Her daughter looks tiny, even cradled in Arya’s arms, though a few hours earlier, Sansa would’ve sworn she was the size of an auroch. She is as fair as the snow outside, only a few wisps of dark hair on her head, and she hasn’t opened her eyes long enough for Sansa to truly determine the color of her eyes. Regardless, Sansa thinks she is the most beautiful creature she’s ever seen in her life.

Arya passes the baby to Bran, who holds her uncertainly enough that Arya snips, “Cradle her head, stupid!” as if she is the authority on holding babies. Bran, usually impervious to Arya’s comments, looks offended though, insisting he knows that, and Rickon, who is curled up next to Sansa and was decidedly unhappy about having to hand over the baby to Arya in the first place, huffs.

The scene makes Sansa smile though, because even though her daughter is only a few hours old, she knows her siblings will raise all seven hells to keep her safe.

“What _are_ you going to call her?” Rickon asks, playing with the end of Sansa’s braid.

“Brynn.”

“Brynn?” Arya repeats. “Where’d you come up with that?”

Sansa just looks at Bran, who smiles and answers for her. “It was the name of Brandon the Daughterless’s daughter, the one stolen by Bael the bard who hid in the crypts.”

Arya smiles. “Well, let us hope she has some wildling in her. We wouldn’t want her to be _too_ proper.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” Sansa agrees.

* * *

Jon comes in the middle of the night with a blue rose in his hands.

“It seemed appropriate,” he says with a shuffle of his feet. “That’s how the story goes, isn’t it?”

“So they say.” Brynn, lazily nursing at her breast, finally releases her nipple, and Sansa covers herself before accepting the flower. “Would you like to hold her?”

“Yes but…” He winces. “If I hold her, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go.”

She nods, brushing her thumb over the peach fuzz on Brynn’s head. “She’ll be here when you get back. You can hold her then.”

Jon closes his eyes, and when he opens them, Sansa sees the slick shine of them in the candlelight. “I’m so sorry, Sansa. I never meant – “

“I’m not. Sorry, I mean. I don’t regret a thing.”

And she means it. How can she not when the future of House Stark slumbers in her arms?

“Sansa – “

“Do you love her? Will you stay with her, be her consort?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t plan – “

“Oh, that much I know.” When he only looks more miserable, she sighs. “I’m teasing you, Jon. We have to be able to laugh about this. Otherwise it’s too sad.”

“I don’t want to laugh about this. I don’t – I didn’t – “ His eyes fall to Brynn as she releases a puff of breath, her little hand waving for a moment before dropping back down. “I never wanted to father a bastard, to put that on a child.”

“And you didn’t. What did Maege Mormont used to say, that her girls were fathered by a bear? Well, she was fathered by a direwolf.” She smiles. “You know how people talk. She’ll have a dozen fathers by the new moon.”

“I loved Ned Stark,” he says after a long beat. “Even when I hated him for making me a bastard, I loved him. I never once doubted – “ He clears his throat. “The last thing he ever said to me was even though I didn’t have his name, I had his blood. Every time I was called ‘bastard,’ every time someone made a comment about my mother, I reminded myself of that.”

“Keep reminding yourself of it. It’s easy to forget yourself in the Red Keep.” Shaking her head to try to keep tears at bay, she shifts, extending Brynn towards him. “Hold your daughter, Jon Snow. You’re already too heavy with regrets.”

Even as he tears track down his cheeks, disappearing into his beard, Sansa reads the amazement in his eyes as he holds Brynn to his chest. He drags careful fingertips over her scalp, her cheeks, the bump of her nose; the most beautiful smile blooms on his face when Brynn smacks her lips in her sleep, and Sansa hopes Brynn inherits his smile. 

She hopes Brynn has far more reason to smile.

* * *

The raven announcing of Cersei Lannister’s defeat arrives three days after the raven announcing their safe arrival on Dragonstone. Sansa considers ordering the bells to be rung, but Brynn is such a finicky sleeper, she does not want to risk a screaming infant for the entirety of the day.

She is half-asleep herself, nursing Brynn around lunchtime, when Rickon comes running into her chamber, a grin on his face. He is out of breath as he always is, forever running from place to place, but there is an edge of excitement to him Sansa does not entirely understand, particularly when he declares, “C’mon, we have to go to the godswood!”

“The godswood? Rickon, I have a dozen things to do – “

“You have to come! Arya said!”

“Arya? What is Arya doing in the godswood, and why does she need me to do it?”

“She’s getting married!”

“She’s what?!”

“Bring Brynn too!” Rickon orders before running out of the room, continuing his mission to round up wedding guests.

By the time Sansa makes it to the godswood, Brynn snoring in her arms, she is half-convinced this is all a jape, some silliness Arya has roped Rickon into perpetuating. But when she arrives in the clearing where the heart tree stands, she finds Bran, Rickon, the Reeds, Podrick, Brienne, and Satin standing witness to Arya and the handsome armorer.

“Took you long enough,” Arya grouses, shifting impatiently on the balls of her feet. “Did you go to Essos first?”

“What’s going on? You’re marrying…?”

“Gendry,” the armorer supplies with a bashful smile.

“Yes,” Arya states with the same surety she always has, “and we’re going to stay here, he’s going to run the forge, and I’m not taking his name.” 

Arya tilts her chin upwards in a gesture Sansa recognizes from childhood, always the first hint of a fight brewing, but she is so tired of fighting. And if Arya loves Gendry, she knows he must be a good man, so all Sansa says is, “Then we’d best get this started before Brynn wakes again.”

Bran leads the ceremony, asking Arya and Gendry to speak when required. When he asks who comes before the gods to give Arya’s hand, Rickon shouts, “Us!” with enough vigor that Sansa is certain he’s heard on Bear Island. Bran’s eyes flit towards Sansa and she offers, “House Stark,” before smiling at Arya, who smiles in return.

The wedding is over in minutes, and Sansa cannot help but laugh when Gendry lifts Arya off of her feet during the kiss meant to seal the union and her little sister kicks him in the shin when placed back on her feet. He hisses a curse, Arya calls him an idiot, and then she kisses him again.

It is certainly not the wedding or the match their parents would’ve planned for Arya, but it is so perfectly Arya, Sansa finds no fault in it.

* * *

Every day Sansa awaits the raven that will bring the news of Jon and Daenerys’s engagement, and every day, it doesn’t come.

Time moves on. It always does, especially with so much to do. There is still so much to rebuild in the wake of the Battle of Winterfell, not to mention the damage left from the Battle of the Bastards and Ramsay’s initial taking of the castle, and the smallfolk need so much as do the wildlings who remained south of the Wall after the Night King’s defeat. Sansa feels guilty some days for how she resents the endless work; this is what she wanted, to have Winterfell back, to reclaim her family’s position in the North, but it is far more taxing than she expected.

It is not as if she is doing it alone. Arya and Bran both do what they can, Bran working with the wildlings while Arya and Gendry made inroads with the smallfolk, but she is not the King in the North the Northern lords wanted. Sansa knows this, feels this in every pointed question they ask, every heavy silence that hangs between their sentences. She may be Ned Stark’s daughter, may be the person Jon chose to rule Winterfell in his stead, but they do not want _her_ ; they want the King in the North, a king that does not even exist because he traded away the kingdom to a pretty queen with dragons.

Perhaps she’s still angrier about that than she thought.

“You’re my favorite king,” Satin quips when she complains about a meeting with Lord Cerwyn, pulling a face that makes Brynn giggle. 

“I don’t understand what it will take for them to respect me.”

“They respect you. That doesn’t mean they want you to lead them.” He pulls another face, sending Brynn into a borderline hysterical string of laughter. “You’re a beautiful woman who isn’t asking them if they’d like more wine or embroidering them something. In my experience, men like them have very certain ideas of what women should do.”

“You make it sound as if I’m Arya, sparring with Brienne in the yard.”

“You may be wearing gowns, but you’re still not what they think a lady should be.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It is.” Throwing his voice into a higher register, he tickles Brynn as he says, “And that’s why you’re going to get these men used to it before this little one becomes Lady of Winterfell.”

 _It is all for Brynn_ becomes Sansa’s mantra each time she suffers through another infuriating conversation with a Northern lord.

* * *

Brynn’s hair comes in dark as dragonglass, forming soft curls that frame her face. With her Tully blue eyes, the contrast is sharp enough to make everyone comment on what a beauty she will be, how she will surely be striking and turn every head.

The thought makes Sansa sick with worry. She knows what it means to be a pretty girl in this world, for men to look at you with want in their eyes and hate in their hearts. The idea that one day Brynn will walk into a room and draw the attention of men like Littlefinger, Joffrey, _Ramsay_ makes a scream form in Sansa’s throat, burning to be free.

“Will you teach Brynn how to handle a sword like you?” Sansa asks Arya one afternoon after watching her defeat Podrick without breaking a sweat.

“You want her to be a water dancer?”

“I want her to be able to defend herself.”

“From who?”

“Anyone.”

Arya tilts her head, studying her in that unnerving way she’s developed, before nodding. “We should probably teach her to walk first.”

“I didn’t mean tomorrow.”

“Good. It’ll give Gendry time to make her a proper sword.” She slips her little sword into its sheath. “I’m pregnant.”

Sansa blinks in surprise, startled by the sudden change of topic. “You are? Are you…happy?”

“I don’t know yet.” She wraps her arms around herself. “Were you?”

“Not really,” she admits. “It’s an odd thing, particularly when you aren’t expecting it.”

“But you’re good at it, being a mum. You _are_ ,” she insists, cutting off Sansa’s protest before she even has a chance to voice it. “And not just to Brynn but to Rickon too. What if I’m shit at it?”

“You won’t be. You’ll have it and you’ll look it, and you’ll realize in that moment that you’d…you’d do anything, even ask your little sister to teach her to swordfight, if it means protecting her.” Sansa smiles. “And it would be nice for Brynn to have a cousin to grow up with.”

Arya considers her words for a moment before sighing. “I guess I should tell him then.”

“He’ll be happy.”

“How do you know?”

She laughs. “Because no one has ever loved their wife as much as Gendry Waters loves you.”

Arya rolls her eyes but doesn’t bother denying it.

Sansa wonders what it’s like, to be so certain of how loved you are.

* * *

Brynn adores Rickon almost as much as Rickon adores her. It seems as if she wakes every morning to already find Brynn out of her cradle, happily ensconced in her uncle’s arms as he talks to her, plays with her, coaxes her into eating oatmeal, or any other of the dozen activities he manages to find for them. For a boy who breaks everything he touches, who tackles servants as he rounds corners running through the castle, and who has no patience for any lesson ever, Rickon is unbearably gentle with her, and it never fails to melt Sansa’s heart.

One evening, a fortnight after Rickon’s birthday and a day before Brynn will turn one, Sansa lays in bed, Brynn warm and sweet-smelling from her bath on one side of her, Rickon on the other. He is too big for her bed now, particularly with Brynn spending most of her nights in it as well, but Sansa cannot bring herself to cast him out. Rickon is still awake, playing with the end of her braid the way he always does, and she has just let her eyes drift shut when he says, “Sansa?”

“Hmm?”

“Why isn’t Mother in the crypts like Father?”

Her eyes pop open, startled by the question. Rickon never mentions their parents, or, if he does, it is always in the most abstract terms. She’d shown him their father’s statue herself, explaining what a kind, honorable man he was, and he’d managed to stand there and listen before asking if he could go play. She’d tried to teach him about House Tully, tried to teach him their words, but she still isn’t certain if he actually learned them. He listens when she, Bran, and Arya tell stories about the past, share memories about Robb; it seems to be the only time Rickon truly pays attention, absorbing the stories in a way he never has letters or numbers, but he doesn’t ask questions, seek clarifications, or pretend to recall anything.

“She died in the South with Robb.”

“But Father – “

“Father died before the war started. It was…different when they died.”

“What’s a Red Wedding?”

Sansa wants to get out of bed, get out of the chamber, flee to somewhere, _anywhere_ where this question will never be asked. “Where did you hear that?”

He shrugs, pulling her hair as his fingers begin to worry her braid a little faster. “Just heard it somewhere. They said Mother and Robb died at the Red Wedding.”

“What else did they say?”

“Nothing,” he lies, his face hiding nothing, and Sansa _knows_ she has heard the story of what the Freys did to Robb and Grey Wind, what they did to their mother, so they could not even be given a proper burial.

She wraps him up in the tightest hug she can manage, hoping he cannot feel the panicked pounding of her heart. Rickon returns the embrace just as tightly, burying his face against her neck, and his voice is muffled as he vows, “I won’t ever let anything happen to you or Brynn.”

Sansa isn’t certain why she thought an absence of memory would protect Rickon from the pain of their past, why he could escape the ache that haunts the rest of them. 

Sometimes she worries _that_ will be her parents’ legacy, a bottomless amount of grief, and she doesn’t know how to fix that.

* * *

Arya is six moons into her pregnancy, Brynn is running on unsteady feet, and Jon comes home.

There is no raven warning of his return, no grand procession returning him to them. One minute, Sansa is discussing guard rotations with Brienne and the next, Jon is standing in the doorway, stealing her breath and her voice.

He looks like a wildling, his hair too long, his beard so overgrown it nearly swallows his mouth. It makes him look older than he is, and she can see shots of silver in his hair and beard where there’d been none when he left. She doesn’t consciously plan on crossing the room, on wrapping her arms around him, and welcoming him home, but that’s what she does, trying to act the way a pleased sister would.

Except she is not his sister; she is his cousin and the mother of his child, and no one can ever know those things.

It isn’t until Brienne excuses herself, offering to tell their siblings of Jon’s return, that Sansa touches the rough growth of his beard and asks, “What happened?”

He flinches as if the question causes him actual pain and responds with a question of his own. “Where’s Brynn?”

Gilly smiles when she and Jon appear at the nursery where Brynn and Little Sam play. Brynn immediately runs to Sansa, and she sweeps her up into her arms, pressing a kiss against the softness of her cheek. Jon runs his hand over Brynn’s curls, longer and wilder every day, and she looks at Jon in confusion, scrunching her nose in the way she does as she assesses a new person. Whatever she sees must be positive because Brynn reaches out, gripping the ragged edges of his beard and tugging it, giggling as she awaits a response Jon doesn’t know how to give.

“It’s a game she plays with Tormund when he visits,” Sansa offers when Brynn does it a second time, her brow furrowing in confusion as she looks up at Sansa. “She pulls on his beard, and he growls at her.”

“Oh.”

When he says nothing else, Sansa tries to inject enthusiasm into her voice as she says, “This is Uncle Jon, Brynn. Can you say hello?”

“No.”

Jon’s face finally cracks, that beautiful, seldom seen smile appearing beneath his beard. “A girl with her own mind. Good.”

She sets Brynn back on her feet, and she immediately returns to Little Sam. Sansa steps closer to him, their shoulders brushing, and repeats, “What happened?”

“I told Dany the truth.”

“About…your parents?”

He nods. “She wasn’t pleased.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I spent the past year in a cell while she decided whether or not to kill me.” He gives a laugh so rusty and pained, it can hardly be called one. “I thought because she said she loved me, she should know the truth.”

“You have a better claim to the throne, a legitimate claim that would push her back in the line of succession. Why would you – “

“Because I’m stupid. Because I thought all families were like ours. She always spoke about how lonely it was, being the last Targaryen, and I thought…”

“Did you escape?”

“No, Tyrion…The book Sam found at the Citadel, he had it destroyed. Without it, there was no proof that what I said was true. He saved my life.” 

“That was kind of him.”

“He didn’t do it for me.” 

Before Sansa can respond, Arya enters the nursery, berating Jon even as she hugs him for staying away so long, and anymore questions must wait.

* * *

He doesn’t look surprised when he opens the door to his old chambers to find her standing there, a pair of scissors in her hand. His beard is trimmed and short as it once was, but his curls are still far too long, almost as if he did not trust his own hand to cut them. She bars the door while he pulls off his shirt, taking a seat in the chair near his bed. Sansa can make out his ribs, wincing at how thin he is, but she says nothing. Instead she stands behind him, working her fingers through the curls still wet from his bath, and begins to snip. 

She works in silence, taking her time, capturing each lock of hair between her fingers, measuring it with her eyes, and then watching as it flutters to the ground like raven’s feathers. Jon lets her move his head as she needs, patient and trusting in a way Sansa isn’t certain she will ever be again, and when she finishes, coming around the front of him to make sure she has cut his hair evenly, she sees there are tears on his cheeks. She sets the scissors on the bedside table and clasps his face between her hands.

“There’s my Jon.”

He is on his feet, kissing her and backing her against the wall so quickly, she barely registers the movement. Still she kisses him, trying to pour everything she’s feeling into him: her gratitude for his return, the longing she’s felt for him, the jealousy she felt when he was with Daenerys, the fear Daenerys will return for him. As she fumbles with his pants, she realizes he is speaking against her throat, the words so soft, they are almost inaudible.

“I missed you so much. I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I’ll be better – “

She swallows his words, takes his regret into her body, a poisonous communion, before accepting the rest of him, holding onto his shoulders as he thrusts inside her, whispering that everything is fine, that she forgives him, that he is safe and everything will be as they want now because he is back and she loves him too, gods, how she loves him.

The only thing she actually knows to be true is her love for him. The rest are just pretty words.

This is the ninth time, and it is the last time she keeps count.

* * *

Arya calls her daughter Nym, and Bran makes so many jokes about how it isn’t too late for them to call their niece “Shaggydog,” Arya throws a water pitcher at him, which only makes Bran laugh harder even as he’s doused with water. 

Brynn calls her cousin “my baby.” At first it is cute, the way she sits as properly as possible so someone can rest Nym across her lap, but soon, when they attempt to remove her, Brynn slaps at her hands and snaps, “ _My_ baby!”

Like Brynn herself, Nym becomes all of theirs, another to be loved and adored, protected by those who know how fragile life is.

“They remind me of you and Arya when you were children,” Jon tells her one afternoon as she rests in the circle of his arms, knowing they cannot linger lest they be discovered by some household member requiring something. “You were like that with Arya, insisting she was yours.”

“I cannot imagine that.”

“It’s true. You doted on her. At least until she could walk and do as she pleased. Then it was like scrapping cats.”

“That sounds more accurate.” She presses a kiss to his chest before rising, slipping back into her shift before beginning the process of donning her gown again. “I just hope they’re friends.”

“They will be. And if they aren’t, I’m sure Brynn and Shaggydog will be close.”

Sansa laughs. “You’d best not let Arya hear you say that. I fear no matter what she and Gendry name their first son, he’ll be called that.”

“There are worse things to be called.” Jon comes up behind her, helping with her laces. “You think they’ll have more children?”

“Are you serious? Every time they look at each other, I fear _I’ll_ end up with child.”

She feels his lips brush against her shoulder. “Would _you_ like to have another child?”

The instinct to say “no,” to deny she has any wants, is strong, but Sansa resists. Instead she truly considers the question, weighing her feelings before finally admitting, “I think so. I’d like to…”

“To what?”

“To have what Arya has, to share the experience rather than…” She turns to face him, bestowing a kiss upon his pinched mouth. “Sometimes I tire of secrets, is all.”

But secrets are what keeps them safe, so she’s willing to go to her grave with a chest full of them.

Perhaps she is more like her father than she thinks.

* * *

Her secret becomes common knowledge at Winterfell with the arrival of her second daughter, born only two days after Arya’s son.

She comes nearly a moon early, slipping from her body with none of the difficulty of Brynn. Arya, who insisted on being present, is nursing Torrhen, getting to her feet to take a look at her newest niece, and fear clutches Sansa when she sees Arya almost recoil from the babe. Her imagination supplies a thousand terrible scenarios as to what could be wrong with her baby, but none of them are even close to accurate. 

Unlike Brynn, she has been born with a full head of hair, which glows as silver as moonlight once Maester Wolkan has cleaned her. Sansa does not need her to open her eyes to know they are violet.

Bran makes no jokes about calling her “Shaggydog.” Rickon, who balances an excited four-year-old Brynn on his hip, looks confused. Jon cannot look any of them, even Sansa, in the eye, his blood having betrayed their secret.

“Her name is Sarra,” Sansa says, trying to act as if she is not holding living proof of a relationship she knows her siblings are struggling to understand, a bloodline that puts her entire family in danger.

When others come to see the baby and give their well-wishes, Sansa sees the confusion and concern in their eyes. Satin, especially, looks as if he is on the verge of promising to take her beyond the Wall, to spirit her away to the farthest reaches of the world to protect them, and Sansa finds herself babbling to keep him from doing it, too afraid she might agree to it, too scared to admit there is nowhere Daenerys and her dragons cannot reach them.

“A white wolf,” Tormund says when he makes his yearly trek down from the Wall. “Good for hunting in the North. She’ll blend into the snow.”

Sansa knows it is laughable, the idea Sarra will be able to blend in _anywhere_ , but she hears the offer in the wildling’s words: he will take her north of the Wall.

“Maybe we should let him,” Sansa ventures one evening as Jon cradles Sarra in his arms, Brynn playing on the floor with a puzzle Bran made her. “If she’ll be safer – “

“She’ll be safe here.” Jon doesn’t look up from their daughter’s peaceful Targaryen face. “She belongs with her pack.”

Arya, who has barely spoken to Sansa in the month since Sarra’s birth, is the one who comes up with the solution. Sansa wakes one morning to find Sarra gone from the cradle, and when she finds Jon in the nursery with Brynn, she flies into a panic, certain Daenerys has sent an assassin to kill their babe, to erase the only proof Jon’s blood is as Valyrian as hers. Satin tries to calm her, but Sansa shakes him off, holding up her skirts as she rushes through the castle.

It is Podrick who tells her Arya has the baby, that he’d seen her carrying Sarra towards the little stone house she and Gendry share near the forge. Sansa bursts through the door, startling Nym and Gendry, who are breaking their fast, but she doesn’t apologize, doesn’t do anything but shout Arya’s name.

Arya appears from one of the rooms, and Sansa sighs in relief as she recognizes the blanket she’d spent hours embroidering. But when she gets within a handful of steps of them, Sansa stops, confused.

“It’s a rinse,” Arya explains, handing Sarra over with careful hands. “Meera told me what I’d need to make it; she says it’ll last about a moon before you have to use it again. I wanted to try it first before getting your hopes with.” She crosses her arms over her chest, a hint of defensiveness coming into her words. “I don’t like it, you and Jon. No matter what anyone says, he’s still our brother. But I love you and I love him, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone hurt you.”

Whatever the mixture Meera suggested, it has turned Sarra’s fine, silvery hair into a muddy auburn, the same shade as Rickon’s wild hair. It is a temporary solution, at best, but Sansa could cry at Arya working to find one while so upset.

“Thank you.”

“You’d do the same for me.” Arya looks over at Gendry and Nym, something soft filling her face. “You know what they say about Gendry, about who is father was. He would have a claim too. She could come for our children as easily as she could come for yours.”

Holding Sarra tight against her, Sansa vows, “No one will hurt our children.”

“No,” Arya agrees, a darkness filling her eyes Sansa doesn’t wholly understand, “they won’t.”

Sansa puts the rinse in Sarra’s hair every moon’s turn, and soon it becomes nothing more than a bit of trivia exchanged by the smallfolk, how Sarra Stark had silver hair the first few weeks of her life before darkening to Tully red.

Babies’ looks change all the time. It is just a fact of nature.

* * *

She spends the entirety of her third pregnancy terrified she will birth another dragon, but Osha arrives with Tully red hair that requires no assistance from Meera’s rinse. Rickon’s grin when she tells him the babe’s name is bright enough to rival the sun, and, as if on cue, Bran asks if they would’ve called her “Shaggydog” if she’d been a boy.

“I was _six_ when I said that!” Rickon grouses, now a mature man of eleven.

“Be honest,” Arya says, a smile on her face, a hand resting on the beginning swell of her fourth child. “You love Rickon more than us.”

“He’s certainly less annoying.”

“We love you all equally,” Jon chimes in, leading Brynn, Sarra, Nym, and Torrhen into the room, Gendry trailing behind him with Syrio balanced on his hip.

“I love Uncle Rickon most,” Brynn volunteers, sending all the adults into a round of laughter.

* * *

She and Jon wed in the the godswood under the cover of night. Sansa wears a Stark cloak edged in white fur, scales embroidered along the inside because she is not just Ned Stark’s daughter but Catelyn Tully’s daughter as well. It does not matter, this break with tradition; Jon is not going to remove her cloak, not going to replace it with another because, like Arya, Sansa plans to die as Sansa Stark. She’d suggested wrapping her cloak around _his_ shoulders, giving him the name that’s rightfully his in so many ways, but Jon had just smiled, shook his head, and said it was enough for their girls to carry the name.

She weaves a crown of winter roses for Brynn to wear, gives Sarra a pouch of petals to scatter around them; Osha, not quite a year old yet, attempts to eat some of the petals, starting a howling fight between her and Sarra until Brynn intercedes. They wear matching gowns of white and grey, her little wolves, her Northern princesses; she makes one for Nym as well, and she spins herself sick while making the shirts flare out. 

There are less guests at this wedding than Arya’s, a feat Sansa once thought impossible until she proposed the idea to Jon. Only her family is present, Bran once again leading the ceremony, Rickon giving her to Jon when the time comes, Arya and Gendry trying to keep the children from disrupting the ceremony. When she kisses Jon, sealing the marriage, Sansa swears she almost hears words from the rustling red leaves of the weirwoods, but whatever she imagined is drowned out by the ecstatic clapping of Brynn and Sarra. 

The King in the North – and Jon is still the king, will _always_ be the king to those in the North – cannot fuck his sister and certainly cannot marry his sister, and so the North all agrees neither happens.

And when Benjen is born a year to the day after the wedding, his father in miniature, everyone gives their well wishes, pays lip service to how much he looks like his Grandfather Ned, and pretends they don’t hear Sansa’s daughters call Jon Snow “papa.”

* * *

Daenerys sends a raven only once.

As Wardens of the North, they receive missives from Tyrion, the same as the other Great Houses, detailing requests from the crown or news from the capital, but Daenerys does not write, does not acknowledge them at all. When Maester Wolkan brings the letter to Jon and Sansa sees the three-headed dragon seal rather than Tyrion’s seal, Sansa’s stomach drops, the fears always lingering in the back of her mind blooming fully at once.

Jon never tells her what was in the letter, and Sansa never asks. 

But when it comes time to put the rinse on Sarra’s hair again, he tells her not to bother, and soon Sarra is chasing after her sisters and cousins, long, silver hair blowing in the breeze.

* * *

“Do you ever think,” Sansa muses one evening as she draws shapes on Jon’s bare chest with her fingertips, “that if we’d grown up as cousins, we might still have ended up here?”

“I would hope so.”

“I’m serious.” Tilting her face up so she can look at him properly, she explains, “You would have been the prince, and we know how much I wanted to be a princess then. Maybe I would’ve begged Father to be your betrothed the way I did to be Joffrey’s.”

“So that’s all I would’ve been to you, a crown?” he teases.

Sansa climbs atop him, sitting on the firm muscles of his stomach, resting her hands on his shoulders with a smile. “Yes, that’s all it is. I’ve given you four children and wed you all with the hope you’ve secretly been plotting treason to make me a queen.”

“And if I don’t?” he asks, playing along as he gathers her nightshift and pulls it over her head, leaving her bare.

“I suppose I’ll have to travel to King’s Landing, seduce Daenerys, become her mistress – “ Sansa squeals as Jon suddenly flips them, pinning her to the mattress as he groans against her throat.

“Gods, let me come along if you plan that. I’ll gladly be cuckolded for such a sight.”

“Lecher,” she accuses, moaning as his tongue traces her collarbone before sliding down her breast, capturing her nipple between his lips.

“Only for you.” He grins up at her as he slides down her body, shouldering her thighs apart so he can fit between them. “I love you, you know.”

“I know. I love _you_.” Twining her fingers into his hair, she nudges him down. “But I think I may love you more after this.”

This could be the hundredth, the five hundredth, the thousandth time she’s laid with him.

Still, she thinks, it will never be enough.

* * *

The royal decree comes addressed to Sansa, Tyrion’s seal keeping it closed. Even before she opens it, she knows it will change the course of their lives. 

She finds Jon in the godswood with Osha and Benjen, Benjen in his arms, Osha collecting smooth stones for her collection. When Sansa takes a seat beside Jon, staring at the still water of the pond, Benjen clamors into her lap, snuggling against her breasts as he babbles his nonsense. She passes him the thin piece of parchment, kissing the top of Benjen’s head and smiling as Osha shows her a stone that looks like the dozens of other stones collecting dust in a box in her room.

“Legitimized at last,” she says as she sees Jon’s eyes go wide reading the words. 

“I told her I didn’t want it. I told her I _never_ wanted it.”

 _So that’s what she sent in her letter_ , Sansa thinks but says nothing about it. Instead she continues, “And it would seem our children will be princesses and princes after all, just not of the North. Rather bold of her to name Sarra as her heir rather than Benjen. I’ve heard it’s the Dornish custom – “

“Sansa – “

“Though I _do_ think it’s in poor taste to skip over Brynn – “

“ _Sansa_!” Jon crumples the parchment in his hand, face tight with anger. “Our children are not Targaryens. They will never sit the Iron Throne.”

“Perhaps you should tell your aunt that.” Offering Benjen a brief smile as he taps his pudgy hands against her face in a bid for attention, she declares in a falsely cheery voice so as not to upset the children, “I will call every banner, every wildling, ever Knight of the Vale and soldier of the Riverlands before I send my child into that pit.”

“It won’t come to that.” Jon sighs, shaking his head. “She meant this as a peace offering. She said she wanted House Targaryen to live on.”

“And it will, but not in that castle.”

* * *

Arya disappears.

One day she is there and the next she is gone, and Jon, Gendry, and her brothers do not seem nearly as concerned about it as she is. Any time Sansa brings up her sister’s absence, it is hand waved away, and she does not understand why no one is worried that a mother of five children has seemingly vanished.

“Do you know where your mother went?” she asks Nym one morning as she comes to join her cousins for lessons.

Nym may look like Gendry, but she’s inherited Arya’s uncanny ability to hide everything on her face. “No, Aunt Sansa.”

A moon’s turn into her absence, Sansa finds herself assuming the worst, blurting out at the dining table, “Did you send Arya to kill the queen?”

Arya may be able to hide her thoughts and feelings on her face, but it is not a trait her husband or their brothers possess. All of them begin to stumble over each other to insist that Arya is _not_ on her way to commit an act of regicide, and they are all such terrible liars, Sansa knows they are telling the truth.

When Arya finally returns after two moons away, she has with her a fat baker she calls Hot Pie, presents for the children, and two wooden boxes she refuses to let the servants help remove from the cart.

“Where have you been?” Sansa demands even as she embraces her, torn between relief and fury. “What could possibly make you – “

Arya points to the boxes. “The one on the right is Robb. The other is Mother.”

It was Bran’s strange gift that sent Arya on her quest to bring their family home, and Sansa finds herself stroking the lids of the boxes. She cannot bring herself to open them, to see the bones of her brother and mother; how Arya could manage it, going to the places where Bran said they’d be, collecting what was left of them, Sansa will never truly comprehend. Even when they are laid to rest in the crypts, Sansa waits until their tombs are sealed before coming to pay her respects.

Rickon comes with her the first time, slipping his hand in hers. He is growing like a weed, still not able to grow a beard but standing as tall as Sansa, but he seems like a small child in Sansa’s bed again as they stand there in silence.

“I’m glad she’s home,” Rickon finally says, his voice crackling in that way all boys’ voices do on the cusp on manhood. “Father must’ve been lonely without her.”

“Yes, I imagine he was.” She squeezes his hand. “He loved her very much.”

“As much as Jon loves you?”

It never stops hurting, realizing Rickon’s only frame of reference for parents, for a marriage, is her and Jon. “More, I think.”

“Did Robb love us?”

“Oh, yes. He always did what he could to protect us. He was – He was a wonderful big brother.” She looks at Rickon, so proud of the man he is becoming, so sad their parents were not there to see it. “You remind me of him all the time.”

“I wish I remembered.”

It is the first and only time he’s ever said it, but it is not the first time Sansa wishes he did too.

* * *

Daenerys weds a Martell of Dorne, and nine moons later, gives birth to a son she calls Jorah in honor of the man who saved her life during the Long Night. Sansa orders the bells to be rung until sundown, an impromptu feast thrown in the honor of Prince Jorah of House Targaryen.

And when Jorah is followed two years later by a brother called Oberyn, only then does Sansa finally exhale, finally sleep well for the first time in over a decade.

“She’ll leave us alone now,” Sansa says one morning as she watches the children from the balcony, Jon at her side. “She’ll raise her princes, see we’re no threat, and forget about us. We’re free.”

“No,” he argues, brushing a kiss against her shoulder, “ _they_ are.”

In the yard, Rickon is under siege, Benjen on one hip, Arya’s Beth on the other. He is being pursued by all his nieces and nephews, save for Beric, who has given up the chase in order to drape his body over Summer in the hope that the direwolf will give him a ride. As usual, Brynn and Nym are leading the charge, Torrhen and Sarra following behind them, Osha shouting at all of them to wait for her. Eventually Syrio stops, waiting for Osha and taking her hand, a decision that quickly leads to both of them tumbling to the ground and crying, requiring Rickon to call a halt to the game while he makes certain they’re all right.

“They are,” she repeats, a smile stretching across her face as happiness floods her body. 

That is the first time Sansa realizes she’s gotten everything she’s ever wanted, and the first time she isn’t terrified it is all going to disappear.


End file.
